Venomous spider bitecures paraplegicA California paraplegic who used a wheelchair for 20 years recovered his ability to walk after he was bitten by a spider. David Blancarte, 48, was recently bitten by a venomous Brown Recluse spider and sent to an emergency room. A nurse noticed a muscle spasm in his paralyzed leg and tested him with an electric current. “I yelled,” he says. Five days later, Blancarte was walking. Doctors say they’re mystified.

Joaquin Phoenix wrestles with hecklerJoaquin Phoenix, the actor-turned-rapper, engaged in a profanity-laced argument with a heckler at a Miami concert appearance and then leapt off the stage to get at him. Phoenix, 36, who now sports an unkempt beard and dresses like a homeless man, was rapping unintelligibly when the heckler started mocking him. “I’ve got $1 million in the bank,” Phoenix shouted back. “What do you have, b----?” He then launched himself into the crowd and began wrestling with the heckler. Police dragged Phoenix away.Is the mayor of Kiev bonkers?Ukrainian legislators have asked for a psychiatric report on Kiev’s eccentric mayor, after he proposed bribing senior citizens with caviar and pineapples to move into state-run old-folks homes. Leonid Chernovetsky’s constituents call him “the cosmonaut” for his bizarre ideas, including erecting a giant cow statue and a monument honoring street lights. But his latest proposal has caused real alarm. “He’s obviously bonkers,” said resident Irina Kurylo, 64. “He needs testing.”